Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Book Review: Across the Universe

A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.

Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.


I'm sad to admit that I had Across the Universe by Beth Revis on my shelf since it came out. And I just read it earlier this year. I was going to get to meet Beth (who is hilarious, btw) again, so I wanted to have read something of hers. There were things that I loved and things that I did didn't.

I really liked Amy. She was born on Earth and cryogenically frozen to be moved to a new planet on a journey that will take 3 centuries. Elder was an interesting character as well. He was born aboard after many, many generations have lived on the ship. They are from two completely different worlds. I loved that Beth told this story between both main character's points of view. Amy narrated one chapter, and then Elder, and then Amy, and so on... I completely got Amy's thoughts and ideas, but Elder... his thinking is so off because of the way he was raised, the way Earth's history had been skewed.

It took my two months to finish the book. I found the beginning very boring. I would have gotten through it much faster and enjoyed it much more if it hadn't taken a quarter of the book for Amy to wake up from being frozen. One quarter of the book... She was waking up around page 100. I put the book down and almost didn't pick it back up. But I did because I had friends who loved it. And I'm glad I did. But if you haven't reached page 100 and have given up, skim ahead. It'll pick up. I promise.

If you have the hard back, and haven't taken the jacket cover off, do it. It has blueprints of the ship on the under side. When I met Beth Revis, she said her inspiration for the ship, was the ship on Futurama. I can see it.

3 comments:

Midnyte Reader said...

I've had this on my shelf for a long time too. Thanks for the head's up about the beginning. I think it's so cool she imagined the entire ship. (I love Futurama too.)

Sandy said...

Glad you stuck to it and liked it :). The parts where Amy were frozen weren't my favourite parts either but they were the parts that had me a little freaked. I will never by cryogenically frozen, NEVER because she went through a complete nightmare. I enjoyed the book but I found it quite unsettling. I realize I don't like scenarios where people are trapped in containers (space ships) for an indefinite amount of time. It makes me feel claustrophobic. Did you ever feel this way while reading it?

Unknown said...

I am also glad you stuck with it. I didn't find the opening chapters so slow so it is really intresting to read someone else's view on the book.

I am very jealous that you got an opportunity to meet Revis, I would love to pick her brains about parts of the plot. Now you mention about Futurama I can defiantly see the resemblance in the blue print.

Great review,

Love Rie x

[If your interested you can read my review here where I have it a 10/10].

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